How About Lunch?
by WriterGirl5689
Summary: Ten months after her departure, Martha Costello finds a familiar face at her door in the middle of the night.


_**I haven't written anything in months, so this probably isn't the best time to upload my first Silk story. But this show has slowly become my life over the last few months and I needed to express my thoughts on the ending, and as a result, this was created. I think it came out okay, bearing in mind I started with the las piece of dialogue and worked backwards. Leave me as much feedback as you like, as I haven't written anything in months it would be highly appreciated! Thanks, and I hope you enjoy my first Silk fanfic.**_

 _ **Quick Disclaimer: I don't own Silk or it's characters.**_

 _ **I'm done now. Enjoy, and don't be afraid to leave a review! (Can you tell I'm insecure about this?)**_

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Any normal person would have been awoken by a knocking at their door at ten to twelve on a Wednesday evening, but for Martha Costello the night had just started. With a brief spread out on her dining table she was two beers in and not getting very far due to the incompetent notes of an incompetent junior. She huffed at the persistent knocking as she got up to silence the person on the other side of the door, secretly she was happy for the distraction. As she swung open the door she didn't expect the face on the other side.

"Clive." She exclaimed in disbelief. "What are you doing here? it's nearly midnight."

It had only been a ten months since she had left, but her already looked different, he looked exhausted, bags under his eyes exposing his lack of sleep, as well as the slight stubble forming on his chin. Clearly he was confused if he thought that they could be normal after what he did. "I couldn't sleep, I didn't know where else to go, I didn't even know if you were still here. There were rumours of you escaping to the North and joining the family bar." Clive let out a nervous laugh, now that he was standing in front of her, his plan seemed stupid. There was no way that Martha Costello was going to turn into a giddy school girl, just because he had turned up at her door to profess his love. She rolled her eyes, hating herself for giving in she motioned that he should step inside, knowing that the conversation that would follow wasn't one to be had on a doorstep in the early hours. "It's freezing out here, come on in." He followed silently.

"Tea?" She questioned as they entered her flat, Clive was shocked at how familiar it was, he has envisioned Martha reinventing herself after her unexpected departure. He imagined a complete new Martha with new goals, relationships and a new outlook on life, judging by the open brief on her table and empty mugs in the sink and beer bottles on the table, Clive was confident his best friend was still the same. "Yeah that would be great, thanks." He replied, drawing himself away from his observations. He leant on the back of a dining chair, feeling unsure as to whether he was welcome to sit down, Martha was making tea in the kitchen. An outsider would have seen a similar scene years ago, they mirrored the conversation that concerned, _that_. But now the participants were older, in every way possible, they had both had their fair share of emotional turmoil in the past, both had had careers on the line at points, yet something about them would have appeared the same to the outsider. They were both the same people they were all those years ago, at their core, when it came down to it, they were still the pupils with passion, gusto, and drive who were desperate for street robberies at the county court. Except now they were Q.C.'s fighting off the competition for murder trials at the Old Bailey. How can two people be the same, but so different all at once?

"What happened to us Marth? Everything changed overnight." Clive knew that he should be the one to lead the conversation, after all he was the one to turn up unannounced, expecting her to take him in like a lost puppy. She passed him his mug of tea as she sat down and sighed. "I was scared, the second that guilty verdict came back my world started to fall apart. I lost my place in chambers, I lost my home, Billy, you, and my certainty of a future, all in twelve hours. I didn't know what do to, so I ran. To the only place I knew I could, home. I went home for the weekend, but then the weekend turned into a week, the week into two, two into a month and I had to start a life there. I felt safe, secure, away from it all, I knew nobody was listening there, I was certain of it. But I couldn't face the criminal bar, so I started to re-train in family law."

"Marth, why didn't you speak to me, all I got was an empty desk and a signed letter of resignation on mine." Clive never knew Martha Costello to back down from a fight so easily, let alone run full steam home away from it.

She continued, ignoring his question. "That was until I woke up one morning, in my old room at my mum's house. There was this gap on the wall, I'd never noticed it before since I'd arrived there, I was too busy running from it all, the sun was shining on this bright patch of wall, and I realised that a Joy Division poster lived there long ago. It all came back to me, in a box room in Bolton. The woman I was before London, before chambers, before" Martha hesitated. "You. Suddenly I saw the life I would lead if I stayed there in that box room, I would be dealing with angry parents fighting over custody of children and divorces fuelled by money. Instead of seeing 'the Old Bailey' on brief's I would be seeing 'a bottle of baileys' as a reason for filing for divorce. So I came back, back to London, contacted a chambers who tried to headhunt me when I got Silk, joint them, and abandoned the notion of becoming a family lawyer."

"Gosh Marth, that's quite something. I had no idea what had happened to you, I tried to contact you, for Billy's funeral and all I got was your answerphone. I was shocked when you didn't turn up, but now I understand." He absentmindedly took her hand in his, she didn't remove it as he had expected her to. They just sat there in each others company for a few minutes before Martha spoke again. "Why did you come here Clive? If you had no clue I would even be here, why did you come?"

He sighed, knowing that the question was inevitable he still didn't want to answer it. Without any warning to his head, his heart took over control of his mouth. "I'm here because I needed to see you, for the last however-many-months I have wanted to talk to you most of the time, I would see something that would make me laugh, I would have a bad day, or a rare good one, and you would be the first person I would want to talk to about it. But you weren't there, I took me weeks to realise that wasn't your fault that you weren't there but mine. I was an idiot Marth, eighteen years me and you and I practically kicked you out of chambers. I sent you running off into the night, never to return. If I could go back and change everything I would, but we can't. I guess that's why I'm here, I wanted to say that I'm sorry for everything, I was an idiot." Martha knew he was right, but she couldn't agree with him, instead she placed her head on his shoulder and simply said "It's not all your fault you know. Your responsibility was to chambers and preserving its future."

"But that future should have included you. I'm resigning as head of chambers tomorrow and naming CW as my successor, I guess I should have lead with that." He let out a small laugh before shifting to look at her, even with the remains of makeup from the, no doubt, long day she had had, Clive drank her in, after months of relying on memories it was hard for him to tell what had really happened and what his imagination had created as a way of feeding his need for something more. "I want you in my life Marth, every part of it. Even if that means giving up being head of chambers, you are the person who matters the most to me."

Shocked at the remarks of affection and resignations Martha focused on the simpler revelations. "But Clive, head of chambers, it's what you wanted."

He shook his head in disagreement. "I thought it was what I wanted, but it was just part of Harriet's scheme to push you out. You were a threat to her, you're my weakness and she wanted you gone."

Releasing the gravity of the situation about to unfold before her, Martha thought logically before replying, treating it as if she was cross examining him. "You had sex with her Clive, one minute you tell me you love me and the next you are shagging her in our office. How can I know that you won't go back on all this the second you see her?" Martha released a sigh, she was fed up of Clive's games and indecisive attitude towards his feelings.

"I fired her." Martha's mouth opened in shock, she did not expect that. "She tried it on with me and wasn't so happy when I rejected her, she asked why, so I told her that I was in love with you and I was stepping down as head of chambers. I love you Marth, I'm so sorry I was a prick about it all."

Without saying a word Martha stood up and walked over to the brief on her dining table, needing to focus on something factual, something that didn't need her to have emotions to function. She was halfway through the second page when he joined her, "You could run loss of control?" He offered up as he sat down next to her. "You don't defend anymore, aren't you out of practice?" They were back to a shred of normality, her sarcasm and _Northern charm_ keeping his ego at bay. "Haven't you heard? In seven hours my set is turning back to defence. Anyway, I only defend for Martha Costello." She smiled and looked back her notes, highlighting anything that could contribute towards loss of control. Putting her pen down to read she reached for his hand across the table. The simple gesture of him intertwining their hands was enough for them both, it was a silent indication that they were now something new. That's how they remained, hands intertwined, both sorting through various pieces of paper, trying to decipher the juniors' notes.

* * *

"Where do we go from here?" Clive mused the following morning over coffee. After a night of talking and expressing how they really felt, the pair had looked over Martha's brief before falling asleep side by side. Both being too exhausted, both physically and mentally, to even think about engaging in any form of intimate contact.

"I don't know about you, but I'm starving. We could start with breakfast?" Martha replied before promptly sipping her coffee.

"I've got to be in chambers for meeting in…" Clive consulted his watch. "Half an hour. How about lunch? You can choose."

"Lunch sounds like a good place to start, meet you at my chambers. You wouldn't want my

rumoured return to chambers to overshadow your shock resignation."

"He loves you, you know?" Clive called to her as he walked in the opposite direction.

"Who loves me?" Martha questioned.

"The real Clive Reader." He said smiling before turning round to carry on walking. Martha laughed and did the same, dropping her sunglasses from her head she walked along to her car with a smile on her face. Even if she did have to deal with an incompetent junior today, she was confident in the knowledge that lunch was a good place to start.


End file.
